


The General's Man

by wynnebat



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M, Minor Leia Organa/Han Solo, Not Star Wars: The Last Jedi Compliant, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 05:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6740029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren: visionary, Dark Sider, bodice ripper addict.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The General's Man

**Author's Note:**

> For a comment-fic [prompt](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/715121.html?thread=94480241#t94480241) by classics-lover.
> 
> Also posted on [tumblr](http://wynnebat.tumblr.com/post/143776422018/the-generals-man).

It starts like this: Ben Solo is an inquisitive young boy, like many young boys are. He explores the forest outside his house, turning over every bug and climbing every tree he can. He explores the town nearby and the city his mother travels to for work--though those are always supervised explorations, and thus not nearly as fun--and on rainy days he scours every inch of the house for something he hasn't noticed. He dreams of crawlspaces leading to treasure-filled rooms, and gets an attic filled with boxes, which isn't as fun. The nearest one is even filled with books, which are things left only for when he's really, truly bored.

The first book in the pile is The Captain's Dreamer, and Ben's reading the back to see if it's at least got the cool kind of aliens in it, when his mother climbs up the attic ladder.

"Oh, don't read that rubbish," Leia says. She places the book back into the box and pats the cardboard flap shut. "Honestly, I should throw these away."

But she doesn't.

.

"I got you a present," his father says the next time he comes home, and at ten years old Ben has decided he's too old for airplane models, and his mother scowls at her present, too. It's another one of those books, this one by a different author, but the cover's nearly the same. The bare-chested man isn't as pretty as the other one, though Ben likes his long hair. It flows in a mane that nearly reminds him of Chewie.

His parents laugh when he says so, and don't notice when Ben takes the book upstairs. It's going to be one of those months, Ben thinks, once his parents begin arguing again a couple days into his father's return.

His father being home is not the usual state of things, and it's tense, strange. No one's ever asked him, but if they do, Ben thinks he'll say he loves his dad, but his love's as fleeting as Han's presence at home.

Ben's not really sure why his father comes back, because while Han is sometimes great, he doesn't get that Ben doesn't like flying, or spaceships, or fishing. They both like people, but Ben doesn't like the way people change when Han's standing next to him. They're always so nice, the sickly sweet kind that makes Ben want to scream. People aren't like that with his mother--

("It's my politics," Leia says wryly, once. Ben doesn't really get it, but he thinks that maybe, it's because his father's still the hero he was, while his mother's doing a different kind of hero-ing, one that people don't like.)

\--but that just means they're more cautious.

When he finally opens the books in the attic, they're filled with people, but strange people. Not quite real, but not fake in the way some people get when he's around them, and doesn't follow their rules.

In The Captain's Dreamer, Nina is a spaceship mechanic, and at first Ben thinks the book is going to be hard, like all those books Poe reads, but it's actually quite easy. Nina isn't like Poe, she's not obsessed with flying. Instead, she's obsessed with Captain Tirk, the most handsome captain alive. Tirk is very dreamy and has a quiet sort of presence that Kylo immediately likes. More people should be quiet; school is so loud, and his parents are always telling him what to do, but Tirk seems to speak in carefully intonated grunts.

Ben goes through the whole box of books that year, and moves onto the next one. There's a decade of them in the attic, and years later, once he reaches the last one, he asks his mother to buy more.

Leia sighs and Ben crosses his arms. His mother didn't like his reading choices and had tried to take the books when she'd first found out, talking about weird things like characterization and consent and _really Ben, of all the things to choose_ , but Ben stood firm.

"I'll just find them somewhere else if you don't agree," is his stunning argument, which gets him grounded.

.

A lot of other things get him grounded, and later sent to Uncle Luke's. Things that are wrong by both the rules in his books and the rules outside them, but since there's so few people who can use the force anyway, Ben thinks he should be able to make his own rules. No one else agrees.

He can't convert his mother, he doesn't try with his father, and Uncle Luke is impenetrable, but the other students at Uncle Luke's training island are much more reasonable. For all that Ben doesn't always understand people, he's found it easier to get people to understand him, now that he's growing older, stronger.

.

He can't bring much when he makes his way to the First Order; he'd planned and packed, but he could only bring a small pack filled with necessities (and The Captain's Dreamer for good luck), in case the worst happened and he had to flee with his most loyal.

Uncle--or, no, not anymore, not when Ben sheds the name others have called him and finally begins to go by his own--Luke chases them across three planets, but never catches up.

When he looks back on it, Kylo wonders if he'd even wanted to. Luke's presence in the force had always been strong, stable, and it had only been then that Kylo had felt him be anything but that.

.

He doesn't quit his habit--maybe an addiction, but it's a benign one, and keeps him from indulging in fits of anger instead--even once he's with Lord Snoke.

Real life is messy. The First Order is chaotic, mean, human, so very real that Kylo sighs in relief to know he's finally found a place he actually wants to stay. But at the end of the day, he likes knowing he can read about a Tok princess' anguished betrothal rather than yet another mission report.

General Hux is only one of the many people who make a comment, though his isn't as extreme as Captain Phasma's. (It's a pity, honestly, that the rest of the world is so deluded. Kylo thinks the books would make a fine addition to anyone's routine.)

"Ren, don't you feel as though your brain is leaking out of your ears?" Hux asks, when Kylo pulls out one of his books. They're on a rare mission together, and while the troopers have been sent out to do their jobs, there's nothing for the commanders to do.

Kylo raises an eyebrow under his mask and returns to Kai's ravishing at the hands of a pirate wanted across the whole galaxy.

When the mission goes south, and Kylo is hanging onto life by a thread, he says through a mouthful of blood, "I want a passage read from The Captain's Dreamer at my funeral. I've highlighted my favorites, so pick whichever you desire."

"For fuck's sake," Hux says. "I'm not reading that shit."

"It's my dying wish," Kylo says, and he thinks Hux manages to save him only to make sure he doesn't have to fulfill the request.

Once they're back at the base, Kylo gives Hux a copy of the book as thanks.

He gets back a bulleted list of Hux's least favorite parts of the book.

Obviously, Kylo has to try harder to unlock Hux's romance novel desires. He leaves a second book on Hux's desk.

.

It's months later when Hux finally leaves a book for Kylo in return. Homoerotica, despite being Kylo's preference in real life, hasn't appealed to him as much in fiction, but he reads the novel faithfully. It's good to finally know he's had an effect on improving Hux's literary interests.

And when Hux asks if Kylo wants to discuss the novel in his chambers, Kylo only waits to make sure Hux has indeed read the book, too, before he lets Hux pull him in for a ravishing of his own.

**Author's Note:**

> (+"Does the General have a first name?" Kylo hears a trooper say in a hushed voice. To the trooper's horror, Kylo Ren replies, "No. He's like Roarke. No first name needed." The trooper does not understand the reference, sadly.)
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The General's Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9088108) by [sisi_rambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisi_rambles/pseuds/sisi_rambles)




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